Am I really so transparent?
“Surely you must see the danger toher,” he goes on. “The lives we lead—it is selfish to pull someone into our world who doesn’t belong here.”
We’ve been speaking in Russian, as befits Consortium discussions, but I switch to English now, unwilling to mix Robin’s name with business.
“Robin is worth no more to me than any of my other girls,” I tell him coldly. My grip on the brandy snifter tightens until I’msurprised the crystal doesn’t crack. “When I’m tired of her, I’ll send her on her way, just as I always do.”
Stefan nods slowly, though he doesn’t look convinced.
A faint movement catches my eye—a shadow flickering under the doorway. Then I catch it because I’m listening for it: the soft sound of footsteps hurrying away down the corridor.
My stomach drops like a stone.
Robin. Those were Robin’s footsteps, quick and light. She must have heard what I said, my casual dismissal. The way I classified her as just another in a long line of bought companions, interchangeable and disposable.
And so whatever fragile connection has bloomed between us over picnics and village walks and tender moments in bed, I’ve incinerated it once more with a few carelessly chosen words.
Stefan doesn’t seem to have heard. He continues talking, something about maintaining appearances and remembering our obligations, but his voice fades to background noise. All I can think about is the look that must have been on Robin’s face when she heard me reduce her to nothing.
“Are you listening, Eva?” Stefan’s voice cuts through my spiral of self-recrimination.
“Yes,” I lie, forcing my expression back to neutral. “Of course.”
But I’m not listening. I’m wondering how much damage I’ve just done, how many steps backward I’ve taken, how many walls I’ve just rebuilt between myself and the one person who’s made me want to be better than I am.
I don’t know if it can be fixed. Not again.
And so perhaps Uncle Stefan is right. Perhaps it’s time for me to put distractions aside and focus on business.
Chapter 14
Robin
Ihurry down the dimly lit corridor, my heart pounding like a war drum in my chest. Behind me, Stefan’s and Eva’s voices still echo in my head like a curse I can’t shake:
“Robin is worth no more to me than any of my other girls. When I’m tired of her, I’ll send her on her way.”
Just another girl. Just another transaction. Just another temporary amusement for the great Eva Novak.
How in the hell had I lost sight so badly of who Eva really is?
Stefan and Eva had both given the impression that they were going to bed after dinner. But I’d seen a light sliding out from Eva’s study door. I’d been about to knock, with every intention of asking Eva to come to my bed, or maybe slipping into her arms again right there in the study. After our picnic, after yesterday’s tenderness, even though she’s been avoiding me all day, I thought…God, I’m such anidiot.
Stupid, stupid,stupid.
My room feels like it’s laughing at me when I reach it, the bed mocking me with its silk sheets and the memory of Eva’s hands on my skin. I can’t go to bed, not in the state I’m in, so I walk around the room, circling again and again, chest tight, until something else begins to lick at the edges of my pain.
Anger.
How dare she?
How dare Eva use my family as bargaining chips, uproot me from them, drag me across the world, trap me in this gloomy castle—and not evencare?
How dare she touch me like I matter and then dismiss me like I’m nothing?
I’ve been too hung up on tiny moments of warmth from her that I ignored all the blazing red flags. The long silences where Eva’s eyes went distant and cold. Her obsession with control, with not letting me touch her, not deigning to have an orgasm herself when we were intimate until she had me fooled once more.Controlledonce more.
She thinks I’m just another pretty toy. A little bird to keep in a cage until she gets bored with me and sends me flying back to my inconvenient family.
